Road Traffic Control Devices (RTCDs)

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North Central Zone:

There are six states in the North Central zone namely: Niger, Kwara, Plateau, Benue, Nasarawa, and Kogi. The Federal Capital Territory, Abuja is also in the zone. The total Federal road network is 9,756Km. Such include the Abuja-Minna road, Abuja-Keffi road;

Keffi-Gubi-Akwanga road; Keffi-Nasarawa road; Kefi-Laminga road Akwanga-Markurdi road; Abuja-Jos road; Abuja-Ilorin road and Lokoja-Ilorin highway. The study revealed that Abuja-Minna road had uncountable potholes and requires major construction work.

Also, Suleja to Mokwa the road can be referred to as a death trap for motorists, as it is adorned by potholes. Abuja-Keffi road is an old road with minor potholes, which appear to be poorly maintained. Presently, dualisation work is being carried out along the road with a record of about 40 per cent completion.

Further, Akwanga-Markurdi roads, the Akwanga to Lafia route are dangerous road with very sharp bends. The worst of the route is from Lafia to Markurdi, which about 90km; it has so many gully-like potholes. Abuja-Jos roads, the Akwanga-forest are a narrow single lane with potholes. The road network between Abuja and Ilorin can be described as being fair. Abuja to airport junction is dualised and well maintained. However, from Airport to Lokoja is a single lane road littered by potholes. On this route is the Murtala Muhammed Bridge, which is infested with potholes. The Lokoja-Ilorin highway which was constructed years ago, has gone very bad, potholes are encountered almost every kilometer thus making travelling on this road unsafe.

From the foregoing, it will not be erroneous to state that bad roads contributed to road traffic accidents. This is because bad roads tell on the condition of the vehicles, especially in the area of tears and wears. Be that as it may be, WHO (2009) and Oni (2011) established the fact that human error accounted for 85 per cent of the road traffic accidents.

Also, 10 per cent and 5 per cent causes of road traffic accidents are attributed to mechanical and environmental factors respectively. When the roads are good, it reduces the severity of road traffic crashes and injuries on the road.

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Symbols and Signals. Road traffic control devices are put in place at strategic places to regulate and control road traffic by providing crucial information about the road and its environment to all categories of road users. Road traffic signs support safe drive; but the success depends on their comprehensibility by the commercial drivers. Road traffic signs are the most effective when they command attention, convey a clear and simple meaning and give adequate time for proper use. Road markings such as pavement markings and traffic signals are the oldest and most vital part of the highway system. Dewar, Kline and Swanson (1994) opine that they provide a means of communicating important information about the roadway to commercial drivers. Road traffic control devices rely on signs, colours, shapes, symbols and words to convey information. At the same time, road traffic signs cannot effectively serve their intended purposes if drivers do not understand the information concerning safe driving behaviour that is encoded in the signs.

Road traffic control devices are basically durable items used to control traffic and create awareness to commercial drivers and other road users, such could either be permanent or temporary. Examples include road traffic signs, road symbols and road markings. Also, it should be pointed out emphatically that virtually all road traffic control devices are important and ability to decode each road traffic device determines safety on the road. Al-Madani (2000), Sanni (2005) and Steg (2006) describe road traffic control devices as life saving equipments. Oladimeji and Onyema (2011) further describe them as the life wire of every road users.

Road Traffic signs:

Ford and Picha (2000) describe road traffic signs as road infrastructure erected by the side of road to provide information to commercial drivers and other road users. With traffic volumes increasing over the last eight decades, many countries have adopted pictorial signs or otherwise simplified and standardised their signs road safety signs to facilitate international travel where language differences would create barriers, and in general to help enhance traffic safety. Such pictorial signs use symbols (often silhouettes) in place of words and are usually based on international protocols. Such signs were first developed in Europe and have been adopted by most countries to varying degrees (Wolff

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and Wogalter, 1998). The earliest road signs were milestones, giving distance or direction and give warning of potential hazards ahead.

Pre-industrial signs were stone or wood, but with the development of Darby's method of smelting iron using coke, painted cast iron became favoured in the late 18th and 19th centuries. Cast iron continued to be used until the mid 20th century, but it was gradually displaced by aluminum or other materials and processes, such as vitreous enameled and/or pressed malleable iron, or (later) steel. Since 1945 most signs have been made from sheet aluminium with adhesive plastic coatings, these are normally retro reflective for nighttime and low-light visibility. Before the development of reflective plastics, reflectivity was provided by glass reflectors set into the lettering and symbols (Almadani and Janahi, 2002).

The Vienna Convention on Road Traffic is an international treaty designed to facilitate international road traffic and to increase road safety by standardising the uniform traffic rules among the contracting parties. This convention was agreed upon at the United Nations Economic and Social Council's Conference on Road Traffic (October 7, 1968 - November 8, 1968) and took place in Vienna on 8 November 1968. It came into force on 21 May 1977. This conference also produced the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals. As at 30^th June 2004, 52 States, including Nigeria had signed the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic Treaty.

Article 2 of the 1977 Vienna Convention classified all road signs into a number of categories (A - G):

 A – Danger warning signs

 B – Priority signs

 C –Prohibitory or restrictive signs

 D – Mandatory signs

 E – Information, facilities, or service signs

 F – Direction, position, or indication sign

 G – Additional panels

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a. Road Traffic Signals:

All power – operated devices (except signs) for regulating, directing or warning motorists or pedestrians are classified as road traffic signals. In general, a traffic signal is installed at an intersection specifically either to improve overall safety or to reduce average travel time through an intersection and consequently increase capacity. Also, there are two types of signals: Signal by hand and signal by light. The hand signal is used by the traffic officer to control movement of different categories of vehicle; same applies to commercial drivers to communicate with vehicle coming behind, to avoid accident. Also, light signal is shown by traffic (control) light, special touches (used mostly at night) and direction indicator (trafficator) fitted in the vehicle are also used. The purpose of hand or light signal is to direct or communicate with other motorists, encourage orderliness and avoid cohesion on the road. Globally, traffic lights are usually in three different colours:

1. Red – meaning stop

2. Amber – meaning ready to stop or go as the situation may be 3. Green – meaning go

Warning sign:

A road traffic warning sign is a type of traffic sign that indicates a potential hazard, obstacle or condition requiring special attention on the road that may not be readily apparent to a driver. In most countries, they usually take the shape of an equilateral triangle with a white background and a thick red border. However, the colour of the background and the colour and thickness of the border vary from country to country. In Nigeria, just like in the People's Republic of China, warning signs appear with a black border and a yellow background (Parham, Womack and Hawkins, 2003; Nwosu, 1989). Warning signs in some countries have a diamond shape in place of the standard triangular shape; general warning signs are used in instances in which the particular hazard, obstacle or condition is not covered by a standard sign. According to Womack, Guseman and Williams (1981), warning signs usually comprise an exclamation mark on the standard triangular sign with an auxiliary sign below in the local language identifying the hazard, obstacle or condition in Europe. In countries using diamond-shaped signs, the explanatory language is written directly on the diamond-shaped sign, although it may contain only a general warning such as "Caution".

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a. Regulatory signs (Prohibitory)

Al-Madani and Al-Janahi (2002) maintain that these are signs that are used to prohibit certain manoeuvres or some types of traffic. Such signs centers on speed limit, overtaking, parking, right, and left or U-turn and wrong way. Amongst one of the most familiar signs, this sign is used where parking should be prohibited. Usually shown as a red diagonal inside a blue circle with a red ring in Europe and parts of Asia, and a 'P' in a red circle with a either ―No Parking, Right or Left Turn, U Turn‖

b. Mandatory sign:

Mandatory signs are road signs which are used to set the obligations of all traffic which use a specific area of road. Unlike prohibitory or restrictive signs, mandatory signs tell traffic users what it must do, rather than must not do. Most mandatory road signs are circular, may use white symbols on a blue background with white border or black symbols on a white background with a red border, although the latter is also associated with prohibitory signs (Razzak, 2005).

Mandatory road signs can be used to allocate certain areas to specific vehicles. The Vienna Convention explicitly mentions sidewalk/footpaths, cycle paths and bridleways, but bus lanes, taxi lanes, and tracks can also be designated with mandatory signs. When a specific area of roadway is designated with a mandatory sign specifying a vehicle type, all traffic of this type must use this area, if possible. These signs can be combined by putting one pictogram above the other. If the pictograms are side-by-side however, with the sign divided by a white vertical line, each type of vehicle must stay within the lane indicated by the sign. A red line through a mandatory sign indicates that a vehicle of a specific type is prohibited from entering the designated area. A typical example is the BRT lanes in Lagos state. However, it should be noted that every driver plying the road is expected to decode the meaning of mandatory signs.

c. Bilingual sign:

United Nations Centre for Human Settlement (1998) shows that a bilingual sign (or, by extension, a multilingual sign) is the representation in bilingual regions or at national borders or where there is a relevant touristic or commercial interest like airports, rail stations, seaports, border checkpoints, tourist attractions, international itineraries panel usually a traffic sign, a safety sign, an informational sign of texts in more than one language. The use of bilingual signs is usually reserved for situations where there are international institutions.

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d. Road Markings and symbols:

Road markings are lines and symbols drawn on the road mostly in urban centres either to show the number of lanes on a given road or where a commercial driver is expected to stop for another road user. Also, it specifies where and when to overtake other vehicles and the lane to use in turning (Ibekwe, 2008).Such road markings include zebra crossing, cross – walks, central line, edge lines, diagonal line and pavement message. Road Safety Symbols include delineator, clone, speed bump and light baton.

By and large, as pointed out by Idoko (2010), the recurring auto accidents in Nigeria appear to have fall short of solution, in spite of the concerted efforts of the FRSC on the commercial drivers to reverse the trend. According to FRSC statistics, 10, 781 persons lost their lives in road traffic accidents between 2008 and 2009 on Nigerian highway and majority in the Southwestern zone. In 2011, about 48, 955 sustained various degrees of injuries while about 24,120 persons lost their lives in fatal accidents that involved 21,431 vehicles across the nation. As stated earlier, road auto accidents assume more agonising dimension during the last two months of every year and the New Year. In the area of arrest of road traffic offenders, a total of 293, 268 road traffic offenders were arrested within the period under review for various offences ranging from overloading, overspeeding and non-use of seatbelt. Moreover, the FRSC raked in the sum of N795, 399,714.95 million from fines between January and June 2010 as against N565, 236,233.80 million generated within the same period in 2009. This represents 30 per cent increase in fines collection as a result of improved enforcement, efficient fine collection method and no-waiver policy introduced by the Corps. To date, the FRSC data base has captured 1,408,797 traffic offenders with an average of 5000 offenders involved weekly.

Although, the FRSC re-strategized its operation by injecting operational logistics:

patrol cars, ambulances, motorbikes, establishment of additional unit commands, and road side clinics in identified crash-prone areas, in an attempt to achieve the Accra Declaration of 30 per cent reduction in road traffic accident rate, road traffic accident situation is still pathetic and chaotic in the Southwestern in particular and Nigeria in general. In the year 2011, the FRSC‘s RTC records showed that while 4,765 people were injured another 17,464 road traffic accident victims were treated at the FRSC road side clinics. Also, out of

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the 12,591 RTC that involved commercial buses between 2007 and 2010, about 5,828 persons were killed while 5,582 persons were injured and 27,791 sustained various degrees of disabilities.